Drug agency head skeptical of compulsory tests in Russian schools

The head of Russian Federal Drug Enforcement Agency has played down earlier support of obligatory and universal drug tests for schoolchildren, saying the problem, however acute, must be resolved primarily by parents and within the family.

“I am skeptical about the compulsory drug tests in schools.
This is largely a problem of the children’s upbringing in the
family and certain school programs,” Viktor Ivanov said in an
interview with Russia 24 television.

The official added that the parents must have an opportunity to
check if their children are using illegal drugs, but added “it
is not our task to subject everyone to compulsory tests.”

Ivanov’s words marked a change in the official position of the
Federal Drug Control Service, which earlier supported both
universal drug tests in schools and the return of criminal
responsibility for addicts who resist medical treatment.

In 2012 the agency drafted and submitted to other state
structures the bill introducing criminal responsibility for
repeated use of illegal drugs, claiming that such a move would
motivate drug users to seek treatment.

The idea of compulsory tests was voiced by Dmitry Medvedev in
2011. Medvedev, who was Russian President at the time, told the
Security Council that the nation needed a federal law
enforcing compulsory tests.

A working group of the council issued recommendation to
secondary and higher educational establishment to launch the
testing on a voluntary basis and without legal basis, and said that
the authorities needed two or three years’ experience to analyze
the move’s effectiveness.

In 2010, even stronger suggestions were voiced in the lower
house including the plan to introduce drug tests at work.

In March 2012, Viktor Ivanov told the press that the state
program of drug tests had been launched in all Russian schools, but
even then he called upon the mass media not to describe the tests
as ‘compulsory’ or ‘forced’ as the initiative came from schools and
sometimes from municipal authorities that offered parents help in
prevention of early use of illegal drugs.

The program caused a lot of negative responses from parents and
mass media, who noted that the school was interfering into private
lives of children and expressed fear that the children who tested
positive would become outcasts and it would only add to their
problems, potentially stimulating further drug use.

In 2010, The Russian Health Ministry estimated the number of
drug addicts in the country at about 550,000, but independent
experts quoted by RIA Novosti say the real number is between two
and two-and-a-half million. About 20 per cent of all addicts are
schoolchildren and 60 per cent are people aged 16-30.